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The Year of Living Loved

 

 

This is my year.

 

 

I’m big on setting goals and dreaming dreams and making plans, but as we left behind the ignominious 2020, I knew that my focus would be different for 2021.  This, my friends, is the year that I want to finally and fully nail down what it means to be loved by God.  Listen, I know that I should already know this.  Maybe you know you should know it, too.  But finding myself so shaken by circumstances and social media and politics this year, I realized: I haven’t yet scratched the surface of His deep and UNshakable love for me.  

 

The thing is: If His love is meant to be the firm foundation of my life, and if I do not take the time to know and understand it, then I could be building a beautiful home on a pile of packing peanuts (the flimsiest thing I could think of because early-morning analogies are hard.)  So many lives look beautiful from the outside but are inherently unstable when the chips are down and that’s a problem in more ways than one.  Did you know that earthquakes don’t kill very many people?  Falling buildings kill people. Buildings that cannot stand the shaking.  

 

And imagine, if we truly learned to live loved – what might be impacted in our lives? I scratched out a quick list in my trusty notebook:

 

  • My view of myself and my “achievements” 
  • My approach to conflict 
  • My marriage (I’m learning so much about this!) 
  • My parenting
  • My goal-setting and task-doing 
  • My view of His Church 
  • My need to self-protect 
  • My relationship with fear and anxiety (such a big one!)
  • My relationship with money 
  • My relationship with food and body image (Ack! This has been huge for me!)
  • My view of my enemies
  • My relationship with aging 

 

So, this is my year.  

 

I began this pursuit a few weeks ago, diving first into Psalm 139 and sifting through it word-by-word, and I cannot believe what I am discovering as I go.  The beauty inside the love of God for me – and for YOU – is beyond telling.  

 

But I’m going to try to tell it.  My current plan is to post a couple of times each week (or month, or year…we’ll see how it goes), whether anyone reads it or not.  It’s good for me to have a rolling record of how His love unfolds this year. If you want to roll along with me, you can start by reading Psalm 139 in every translation you can find (www.biblegateway.com will give you a handy parallel experience).  Maybe grab a new journal or one of your kids’ spiral notebooks that has gone to waste in the era of online learning and scribble out your own thoughts…perhaps you’ll build such a solid case for His love for you that you’ll never question your own value again. Wouldn’t that be a wonder in 2021?  

 

 

Okay, so this is my little intro.  Tomorrow…the beauty that is Psalm 139:1.  

 

With hope,

 

 

Bo

 

January 19, 2021 - 2:30 pm

Susan - So glad to see you back on your blog!!

January 19, 2021 - 2:45 pm

Tammy Anderson - I really need this. I’m looking forward to doing the deep dive.

January 19, 2021 - 8:50 pm

bo - I need it too! So glad to have you along for the dive!

January 19, 2021 - 8:50 pm

bo - Me too, sister! Love you big!

Are You in a Bad Mood, Too? Maybe This is Why.

 

 

Yesterday was a bad, bad day. And it was the most frustrating kind of bad day: the kind where nothing goes wrong so there’s nothing to blame. A bad day needs a bad guy, but this day was totally innocuous – in fact, it contained more good than bad.  And yet, at about 4:00 I texted him and said, “I’m feeling so…bleh.” He texted back that he was feeling the very same way and didn’t know why. Also, yes, we text each other inside our own home and I’m not sorry about it. The cloud hovered through dinner and well into bedtime – we just could not shake it loose.

 

Brief topic swerve: There should be some kind of law against both spouses feeling down on the same day. Or God should have wired in some bad-day safety valve or something so there’s SOMEONE to save the sinking ship. End of swerve.

 

Cliff prayed for us as we drifted to sleep and asked our good Father to give us peace, but also to give us some insight as to what was making us feel the funk in such a deep way.

 

This morning, I got up with the sun, seeking coffee and Jesus and answers. I’ve been going verse-by-verse through Colossians (a fully-stocked treasure chest if ever there was one) and ran right into this brilliant beacon of a verse:

 

 

Reading this verse was like flipping on a light switch in a dark hallway. I remembered the things we talked about yesterday: News surrounding the pandemic, the rioting in our city (we had a fatal shooting on Saturday), the online arguments of people who annoy us, the upcoming election and the responsibility of the Church in the midst of it all. We also worked to build a solid plan for homeschooling an 8th-grader while staying faithful to our jobs. Turns out, there is a whole universe of worry-stirring things surrounding us, so even though nothing technically “went wrong” in our day, we are feeling the symptoms of soul sickness. The strife and chaos of our world has been building, churning and slowly seeping into the deep places of our humanity, messing with our peace and stealing our joy. Our world is toxic with anger and anxiety right now and those who want to live free of it will need a really good gas mask.

 

For me, Colossians 1:15-16 was exactly that. It was the filter I needed to 1) reveal my unhealthy dependence on an ordered world and 2) move me back into an utter dependence on the goodness of Jesus. Every seat of power, realm of government, principality and authority – EVERY one exists through Him and for His purpose. I can trust Him with it or I can worry about it, but I can’t do both.

 

Today, trusting Him looks like trusting Him – but it also looks like:

 

  1. Limiting the flow of toxins from the outside world to my interior world.
  2. A fresh commitment to gratitude throughout the day.
  3. Seizing some intentional minutes to meditate and take runaway thoughts captive.

 

The stuff our world is facing right now is no joke.  I believe it’s possible to be healthy in the middle of all the sickness, but it won’t happen accidentally. If you also feel suffocated beneath the weight of it all, I encourage you to pick three things you will do today to care for your soul and safeguard your joy. I promise you’ll be glad you did!

 

With hope,

 

Bo

 

 

September 1, 2020 - 8:34 am

Kathryn - Just so helpful. I go through these days, much more than i want to. Thank you

September 1, 2020 - 4:02 pm

Keddah Clement - Thank you Bo for sharing. I’ve been struggling lately to get out of the mind set I’ve been in. This right here is exactly what I needed to hear.

September 2, 2020 - 9:47 pm

Cathey Sturtevant - great thoughts- i am working on meditation and gratitude also-

Letting Go of Joe

 

My son was eleven when he found out his father was dying. He absorbed that news with grace and grit as he entered a world of nearly-constant negative changes. 

 

 


 
 

When he was twelve, he and his pack-of-friends received clearance to ride their bikes pretty much anywhere they wanted, as long as a parent knew where they were and when they were coming back. They tore up the streets of our little mountain town. Freedom on wheels.  I always knew that Josiah was, at least in part, escaping the sinking sorrow in our house.  
 
 


When he was fifteen, he went to summer camp and I was so thankful he had that chance to be away from the heartache, from the feeding tubes and suction machines and just live out his actual age.  One day in, we called his youth pastor to bring him home immediately, please. He walked in the door just moments after his dad died. He bought his first suit to wear to his father’s funeral.  I walked in on his arm and in spite of all the pain of that moment, I remember thinking: There has never been a better son.  He helped carry his father’s casket, and stood by me at the graveside, arm tight around my shoulders as we watched the final chapter of Steve Stern’s life-on-earth story. 
 
 


 
 

And then…we worked to build a new life. We went to weddings together and movies together and danced to Elton John in the kitchen together.  We read the same books and talked late about philosophy and theology and girls and friendships and 70’s music. We laughed and cried and hoped together. We argued about school together.  We made good things happen inside of all the hard. 
 
 


 
 

When Joe was sixteen, he traded in two wheels for four, and he began asking some dads in our church to coffee.  He doesn’t drink coffee, he just wanted a bit of their time to ask a question. Just one question. “What does it mean to be a man?” He gathered data and read books and articles.  He worked to fill the hole in his eleven-year-old heart. He worked hard to find answers and truth. This strategy was both impressive and heartbreaking, and it revealed the ways that I would never be enough. 
 
 


 
 

When Joe was seventeen, I fell in love with another man.  Josiah handled the changes with grace and grit, because that’s what he does. He never questioned my judgement.  Never complained about my newly divided focus. Never asked for anything.  He and Cliff are equal-but-different kinds of smart.  Josiah is Tolstoy and Tolkien and Cliff is business and big tech. I have watched their dance….the dance of learning to know and trust and try to discover who they would be to each other.  
 
 


 
 

Brief aside to say: Josiah is not super easy to know.  He is like a whole universe stuck inside a snow globe. You can see all the stars – just right there on the other side of the glass, but you can’t quite get to them. He’s not looking for friends with the cure to the sorrow he carries, he’s looking for friends who will tie a rope around his ankle and wait silently while he explores that sorrow and pull him out when he’s been there too long. This refusal to take cheap or easy exits out of pain is one of my favorite things about him, but it doesn’t make him easy to know.  His truest friends understand him and love him this very way. He loves them back in the very same way. The rest of the world could learn a lot from them.
 
 


 
 

When Joe was nineteen, he gave me away at my wedding. He cut his hair for me, trimmed his beard for me, and walked me down the aisle like the boss that he is. We hugged and cried hard before he handed me over to Cliff, who promised not just to love me, but to love the four kids who came with me into this arrangement. As I stood on that stage, hearing Cliff’s vows to my people, I wondered: What is this moment for Joe? Is this a win or a wound?  
 
 


 
 

Recently, around a late night fire pit conversation about what causes anxiety in our lives, Joe mentioned that his greatest fear is losing me.  I felt Cliff hear that.  Felt his body shift to accommodate the weight of that information.  The next day at lunch with only my husband, I said: “You have to promise me that if anything happens to me….”  Before I could finish the sentence, he said, “I got Joe.”  He looked me square in the eyes and said it again. “I’ve got him, Bo.  I will always, always have him.”  And we sat, tears streaming over the weight and depth of the love we feel for the ten and for the one.
 
 


 
 

Today, Josiah is packing up his whole world and moving to another city in the middle of a dumb pandemic.  He and his best friend, Ethan, have turned their bikes in for a U-haul and if that isn’t adulting, I don’t even know what is.  Yesterday he called to tell me they would like to stay with us tonight.  I said of course! and then asked, “How’s your heart, bud?”  After a pause, he answered softly:  “Good.  Anxious, but good.”  And all the years of Josiah and every brave moment he’s ever had came swooshing back to me in one gush of pride and fear and longing for everything, everything, everything to be made whole and right for him. 
 
 


 
 

I mentioned the moment to Cliff on my way out the door. After hours of meetings, I returned home to find my husband working from a laptop on the kitchen counter while a huge pot of red sauce bubbled on the stove.  He juggled calls from employees while cooking an Italian feast for my son – something he knew Joe would like because he had texted him to find out exactly what he wanted for dinner.  I watched him ladle that sauce into a gigantic, gooey pan of lasagna and save the rest of it to make ziti which will be packed into Tupperware and sent with him to his new place.  A home cooked meal in his first home. I watched Cliff fuss over that sauce, tasting and fixing and tasting and fixing and – one might go as far as to say – obsessing over it, and I knew: This is Cliff, stepping softly onto one corner of the sacred dad ground.  This is StepCliff, sending food into the snow globe.  I wished with all my heart that Josiah could see this father-with-five-other-sons, fussing over only him – just Joe – and I wished Steve Stern could see this brilliant backup father, caring so well for the son he never wanted to leave behind. Is it possible that in this divine dad relay race, the handoff baton is a sauce ladle?  I don’t know, but I do know that Steve would tell you the prayers he prayed from his wheelchair day after day over that 11-and 12 and 15-year-old boy have been at least partially answered in the man who is willing to cook lasagna and Venmo money and write resumes and just generally love and lay his life down for the kids he inherited when he fell in love with me. 
 
 


 
 

And so, on the day of my son’s transition into his first apartment, first move, first truly grownup venture, I want to say: Congratulations on becoming a man. You’ve done it without much of a map, but you have done it.  And in all of this, I see the hand of God – leading, providing and giving you grace on grace on grace, which you will no doubt pour out on your world.  Because that’s who you are. And that’s what a real man does.  
 
 

I love you beyond telling. 
 
 

Mom 
 
 

 

 

August 27, 2020 - 7:40 pm

Kathy Joyner-Reinmuth - As always, a beautifully written expression of your love for your son woven into your love for Cliff. I have inherited 2 adult children and spouses of John’s along with 6 grandchildren. I try to be a loving family member to them all and like Cliff has shown—- actions speak louder then words. I will never replace their mother but I will love them fiercely with all my heart as my own John feels the same way about my daughter and her husband and my granddaughter. We are truly blessed aren’t we? Kathy.

August 27, 2020 - 7:59 pm

Michelle Oglesbee-Flores - Bo, having attended Westside prior to moving to Portland, I never had the pleasure of meeting you, but did know and listen to you. This is the most amazing tribute to a son, a father and step father. He will do well in his new journey. He knows that his mom loves him and that his step-Cliff does too.

Absolutely wonderful.

August 27, 2020 - 8:15 pm

Kathryn - Wow what a beautiful and loving message.

August 28, 2020 - 1:04 pm

Becky Jo - Dear Bo & entire family,

Letting go of a son, especially one who has a part of your soul no one else has, is definitely one of the hardest and most bitter-sweet moments of life. Especially when circumstances of life, illness, uncertainty, heartache and grief are involved.

Letting go with strength, grace, encouragement, understanding the importance of his need to grow into his own man, while your heart is breaking at the same time, is the bravest, best and right thing.

That does not make it any easier. My son, who was with me in my darkest times, a bitter and nasty divorce after 23 years, financial ruin, major depression and 2 stays in a psychiatric hospital, is much like you describe Joe. He is now 29 and I am now 60. Without his unconditional love and support, I would have died in 2014. My heart and mind still toggle between gratitude for him being there for me (no one else in my immediate and extended family, or church family were) and guilt and heartache that he had to experience that and see me struggle. He did not get support or help from anyone as he worked full-time, went to night school to get his Bachelors degree, maintained a home and tried to have a social life (I didn’t know until later that he did not get support or help. Still working on letting go of that bitterness). Gratitude and love win more and more as time goes on. Today, he still tells me he would never do anything different. Wow! I wonder sometimes how he had the ability, maturity and heart to handle it all.

He moved to LAX from Portland last year. I knew it was good and important for him to go. I supported and encouraged him to go. It was my time to be strong. Oh boy, my heart hurt. That physical hurting of being stretched beyond what you think you can bear. It was hard for him too. It was the first time he felt he didn’t need to be within driving distance ‘in case’ something happened to me. We both knew it was time. We had become co-dependent without knowing what that really meant, and this was the moment to begin the healing and break the chain of that.

He did well, I knew he would. It wasn’t easy. We both had quite the transition to make. Healing and strength came to both of us. Even though I cared more about his than mine, I welcomed the lessening of the guilt and embracing our incredibly special bond.

Letting Joe go and believing in him and celebrating this important and necessary change, is a gift you are giving him. Knowing you are OK (even though you will miss him like crazy and your heart will hurt), will allow him to be OK and thrive. With time, the missing will become less. The new relationship becomes even more than you could imagine as he drove away. Phone calls, texts, Zoom, visits bring a new depth to your already amazing relationship.

I encourage you to process your many emotions as they come. Whether in private or with those you trust, feel what you feel. Joe knows you to the innermost heart. You don’t have to pretend anything with him. He will struggle too. Distance will not diminish the special bond you have. It will make it even stronger and deeper.

As much as COVID19 has flipped our world upside down, it also brought my son back to Oregon after 15 months away. Of course, it isn’t what he wanted to have happen and it has been hard. I understand that. I must be honest though, I am THRILLED to have him back closer. We have a more mature and deeper bond based on who we both are now. I am so thankful for that.

It feels good to share this with a mom who understands this type of bond with a son and how hard it is to let them go. We are blessed beyond belief to have a relationship like this with them.

May your heart be comforted during this transition by knowing this change will continue to deepen your relationship as he experiences his independence and growth and is molded more into that amazing man he has always been destined to become. What else could us mom’s want, right?!

With my heartfelt thoughts,

Becky Jo

PS: The rest of the family dynamics, and Cliff’s incredible ability to be there for you and Joe, simultaneously, is a whole beautiful story in itself. Happy for you to be loved so well, not just once, but twice. I can hear in your writing how grateful you are for that.

August 28, 2020 - 2:55 pm

Jan Elkins - Bo, you are a magnet who draws the world to you, drawn because they see that you walk with God, and they want to know Him. Your story touches my heart. Your suffering has turned into more love. When you suffer some more, you love more. And once again you suffer some more and you love even more. One day, you will discover that your suffering has turned into pure love. May you be filled with the fullness of Jesus each day, with grace heaped upon more grace.

September 1, 2020 - 7:31 am

Karla - Oh Bo, I’m sitting here reading this with tears streaming down my face. Looking into the face of Joe, is like looking into the face of Steve. My heart aches for him missing his dad, yet rejoicing for the the wonderful man he has in Cliff (someday I’d like to meet him!) and excited for him in this new adventure.
My heat aches beyond belief for what you’re feeling right now. Been there, done that. But my oldest son took his wife and our 4 grandchildren with him. With great blessings, they came back with a 5th grandchild!
This will be so good for Joe, so so good. It will have difficult moments but this new layer will be wonderful. Blessings to all of you! I’m hugging your heart, as a fellow boy mom.

September 23, 2020 - 5:48 am

Karon Davis - Thank you Bo,

I always know no matter were we are, that when I visit your page you will post the purest form of writing , about even the hardest topics of life.
You truly are an instrument of God.
As a mom , and once a single mom for many years I kept my youngest daughter closest to me for the very same reason.. She was and is in my eyes perfect 🙂
I was all she had and after the death of my beautiful mom (who was a icon) in the best and worst of ways :),I really was all she had on earth.
Now remarried to seriously my only love on this earth , I heard those exact words come from her many many times. I’m scared to be alone, but I knew what she was saying…
We didn’t know how to break that or move on apart from each other in a healthy way and my loving and most welcoming husband said almost the same words, when I told him the very same thing …
Since I have a wee bit of a trust issue I said I need to know for sure ..
He said Karon of course …. Calm as a cucumber ……I know he meant it ,but once in a while I have to push into the Fathers arms and say Lord I need that assurance from you !
His comforting love again and again fills me up.
But many times I loose heart and panic a wee bit , causing me to well come little unglued
But I go back again to the Father my husband !! and then eventually to my love … .
These days the Lord , is literally filling me up with the water .( you know the thirst water :
I find myself seeing that scripture in a whole new way….
I used to think, that scripture simply meant just that
He can give you more then the world ever could.
Now I come to Him every night and say I have need of this ….
Being acknowledged by my husband more …or feeling this way or that way about myself..
Its personal .. and I have to tell you He is literally filling me up so I come from a full spot on issues in my own life.
Also He has been speaking to me about the next generation and sometimes I think my generation …. The olders….. 🙂 57….. will go and forge the world in a new way,
But thats not it at all …..
Its some of our grown children that will be the ones forging the world in a new way..
My way is to love my husband and love myself , focus on me… yikes….
It sounds sooooo…. ummm non-important … ( no simple …. quiet ….. )
But it is not easy as I’m finding that we as woman can somehow position ourselves way under lifting our children up .. (cause they need it ) lol,
that we forget it was for a season and don’t know how to transition .. At least thats what it was like for me …
Anyway I could type for ever , and very badly at that ,as I refuse to wear glasses …. .
Thank you again and again for posting the tough stuff.
I so needed to hear it said well and so beautifully done..

Warmly in Christ’s love ….
Karon Davis

Beautiful, Scandalous Friday

 
 

I don’t know what to do today.  I mean, it feels like any other day.  The sun is shining, facebook is alive with noise and TGIF’s and You Will Not Believe What This Kitten Did Next.   It’s like every other Friday.

 
 

Except it’s not.

 

 

It’s Good Friday and it seems like that should require something of me.  The holy events of this beautiful, terrible day should somehow move out of the square on the calendar and into the tender places in my heart; places that were once dead and are now alive.  I know we should live in gratitude for the work of the cross every day, but Good Friday isn’t every day.  This is the day; the day it happened.  The day flesh-torn-from-bone filled the aching void in me.  The day the blood of Jesus watered seeds of hope, buried in the dry wasteland of an endless eternity.   The day my spiritual diagnosis moved from terminal to triumphant, from hospice to healed.  This is big.  So I’m torn between sinking into the depths of quiet contemplation or shouting from the rooftops of social media.

 

 

I really don’t know what to do.  But I do know this:  I’m not going to let it pass without stopping to look, really look, at a sacrifice so sacred and scandalous it can only be called Grace. I want to let His words and wounds be my singular sound byte, drowning out the clamoring chatter and endless debates over louder, less-worthy issues in the Church.  The fights and fringes that seem so important on any other Friday, must reverently and fearfully step into the shadows to let this Friday – and all that was accomplished – occupy every inch of the stage.  Perhaps our silent attention and unyielding affection for the work of the cross will cause a change so great that we’ll never want to move back to the insignificant edges.  Perhaps as we stand and stare at Love Poured Out, we’ll be willing to do the same with our words and opinions and work and dreams.   As we realize, fresh and deep, that we were the joy set before Him, maybe we’ll see one another in the very same way.

 

 

Wouldn’t that just be a resurrection miracle?

 

 

 

Thank God it’s Friday,

 

 

 

Bo

 

PS:  We have a Good Friday meditation track on Soulspace today and I really love it.  Take five minutes and move up close to the cross.  I think you’ll be glad you did.  

 

 

 

 

Everything I Want to Tell You

 

Dear friend,

 

This little web site you’re reading is the place where my writing developed, my life fell apart and my dreams were reborn.  It holds so much beauty for me and so many memories that are both painful and wonderful.  It contains pictures of the people I love – the ones I have traveled the world with, stood in the storm with and the dear one I released to heaven.

 

All those words to say: This place is sacred to me, but I’ve had trouble coming back to it.

 

This morning I read  “…no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined.  No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.”  (Mark 2:21)    And I wrote down all the “wineskins” in my life – the containers for the work of God: my city, my church, my home, my relationships, my web site.  While I know He’s making new wine in me, I know I have to be willing to let Him bring new wineskins as well, otherwise both the wine and the container will no longer be useful or delicious.

 

I love the stories I have told on this web site, and they will always be here.  But I have moved my words to a new container:  www.sheology.co.  It’s not just me there – it’s several women I have hand-picked who have mighty pens and miraculous stories.  We gather there to talk about finding our place in God’s story – and we also host conferences, events and offer amazing e-resources, including a Monday morning newsletter where I write my heart out about what God is doing in my study, speaking, dating and dreaming adventures as I work to live a YES life.  I’d love for you to join me there.  You can read the very first one and subscribe here.  

 

Thank you for joining me here and there and everywhere.  I am beyond grateful to have you in my life.

 

Because of Jesus,

 

Bo

 

P.S.  We also have a fantastic advent devotional called Song of Mary available as a free download on the web site right now.  Don’t miss it!  It’s just 7 days so you have plenty of time to jump in and savor this season and The Magnificat.

 

P.P.S:  That’s my teeny-tiny Christmas tree at the top of this post and I LOVE it.  It’s a whole new concept for me to not FILL the room with a giant tree and one million post-Christmas pine needles, but turns out it’s never too late to change your mind about what makes Christmas beautiful.

December 5, 2018 - 1:53 pm

Helen Washington - Bo,

I am not sure why I got so misty reading this post. I think initially it struck me how when I started my blog in 2006, The Difference of Day was one of the first blogs I put on my blogroll…remember those days?! So many posts, musings and so many changes to the online world and our worlds in the midst of writing.
But I believe I also felt emotion because sometimes the looking back allows a more complete view of today. I am so glad your words and others are contained at a new address and fully saturated by the goodness of our faithful Father.

He’s so good at giving us new things and showing us new ways.

xo
Helen